


I'll Be At Your Door Tonight

by QueenAng



Series: Gone, Gone, Gone [1]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:27:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24252055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenAng/pseuds/QueenAng
Summary: "When life leaves you high and dryI'll be at your door tonightIf you need help, if you need help"Starscream has a bad day.
Relationships: Starscream/Wheeljack (Transformers)
Series: Gone, Gone, Gone [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1750612
Comments: 2
Kudos: 60





	I'll Be At Your Door Tonight

**Author's Note:**

> Based on lyrics from the song "Gone, Gone, Gone" by Phillip Phillips

Starscream was about five kliks from restarting the Decepticon movement just to spite Windblade.

The City-Speaker had monopolized his afternoon with complaints about the status of Metroplex. Starscream did care, in a way; the same way he cared about keeping those pompous aft-heads who dared to call themselves councilors happy. Means to an end, and all. Unlike Windblade, however, they at least had the decency to suck up to him.

In all fairness, by the time Chromia arrived in Starscream’s office to pull Windblade aside, the City-Speaker looked just as ready to toss Starscream out the window.

Starscream’s wings didn’t relax at his back until long after the sounds of Windblade’s and Chromia’s pede-steps had vanished. The cables in his shoulders ached from the defensive stance he had maintained throughout their conversation. The data-pad he had been holding had a spider-webbing crack where one of his claws had dug into it.

His desk – and his office in general – saw a growing pile of data-pads full of work to be done that only seemed to grow larger as the cycles continued. He tossed the broken data-pad carelessly into one of the stacks and moved toward the door. Anyone with any sense about them would have cleared out the moment they heard the screaming match between him and Windblade, so the path from his office to his quarters ought to be clear of any further annoyances.

He didn’t allow himself to slouch despite the growing pain in his wings and shoulders until he reached his quarters. Rattrap, and Primus knew how many other similar mechs, would kill to see him show any weakness, and where the screaming match should have chased off any mechs with a sense of preservation, it drew others to circle him like vultures.

The doors to his quarters slid open quietly, and Starscream didn’t dare sigh until he heard the locks click into place behind him.

“Fun day, then?”

Starscream jumped, a servo rising to clutch at his spark. “You nearly gave me a spark attack!” he said, wings rising once more. “What do you think you’re doing, just sitting in the dark like that?”

It wasn’t completely dark; the curtains were drawn back, letting the red light of Cybertron’s sinking sun skirt across the metallic floor, and the bright blue screen of a data-pad illuminated Wheeljack’s face-plates from where he sprawled on Starscream’s couch. Well, Wheeljack’s couch, but Wheeljack had moved it into Starscream’s quarters, and the mech hadn’t yet protested when Starscream called it his.

Wheeljack sat up slowly. “Heard about what happened with Windblade a bit ago,” he said.

Starscream scowled. “So she got to you first, then?”

Wheeljack cocked an optical ridge. “I wasn’t aware it was a race.”

Starscream snorted. “Yes, well, I’m sure you know what happened. She must have told you everything. Evil me, not giving her everything she wants for Metroplex. As if I don’t have a dozen councilors venting down my neck wanting the same and more!”

“You wanna talk about it?”

His wings began to lower once again. “She didn’t send you here to convince me?”

Wheeljack shook his helm.

“Then why are you here?”

The data-pad in Wheeljack’s servos offlined. “Sounded pretty bad, from what I gathered,” Wheeljack said. “Figured you could use some company. Some to vent to.”

Starscream stiffened. “I do not need to _vent_.”

“Okay, fine, you don’t wanna talk about it. Wanna drink about it?”

Starscream allowed him the smallest of smiles. “Much better idea.”

Wheeljack rose from the couch as Starscream sat down, finally allowing his wings to settle into a comfortable position at his back. His frame ached with the after-effects of tension.

The scientist reappeared a moment later with two cubes of energon; the speed at which he retrieved them suggested he already had them prepared, and that thought did odd things to Starscream’s spark. Maybe it was poisoned. Nevertheless, he took the cube.

He took one sip, then paused. “This isn’t engex.”

“Who said anything about engex?”

Starscream scowled at him.

Wheeljack just shrugged. “Have you had anything to fuel today?”

“I’ve been busy.”

“So’ve I. So let’s fuel together.”

Ulterior motive, Starscream’s subconscious screamed at him. No one was this nice to him, just handing him fuel without wanting something in return. The last time a councilor had brought him fuel, it had come along with a casually suggested offer to divert half of Iacon’s cyber-metal exports to New Kaon.

The cube didn’t move in Starscream’s servo. “Why?” he asked.

Wheeljack might’ve worn his battle-mask still, but Starscream could sense the smile beneath it, perhaps from the warmth and amusement in his open field. “Even the savior of Cybertron has to refuel, right?”

Starscream allowed himself one further sip of the cube. He didn’t taste any poison. Perhaps it didn’t have a taste, though. Wheeljack was certainly clever enough to concoct one that would go unnoticed.

“The fighting with Windblade, that ain’t anything new,” Wheeljack said. “So what else was it that fragged up your day?”

Starscream stared. “You’re… asking about my day.”

Wheeljack looked bemused. “Well, yeah,” he said. “I ain’t Soundwave. Don’t have any of that telepathy slag. You’re gonna have to tell me out loud.”

“You want to know about my day.” Starscream’s processor seemed to stop. “Why?”

“Because you seem upset.”

Immediately Starscream bristled. So this was an attempt at manipulation, an easily see-through set-up to get him to reveal his weaknesses, to explain to Wheeljack how the councilors had managed to get under his plating more effectively than acid rain.

Before Starscream could spit out the harsh words that had queued in his vocalizer, Wheeljack spoke again: “I know Windblade is asking for a lot, and I know the new councilor from where they’re rebuilding Tarn just got here a while ago. I don’t know much about all this politics stuff, but I figured both of those together, and with how the councilors usually are, that you’d need a friend around.”

“A… friend,” Starscream echoed. The second glyph came out mostly static, and Starscream hurriedly reset his vocalizer. If Wheeljack noticed, he didn’t comment on it.

“Yeah. You know, someone to make sure you remember to fuel, or to pull you out from the rubble when those towers of data-pads on your desk inevitably collapse on you.” Wheeljack’s optics seemed to shine with mirth, and when Starscream recognized it, his spark did an odd flipping feeling, as though he had just completed a barrel roll. “Primus knows Ratchet had to do the same for me plenty of times. Figured I could finally learn something from him and help you out.”

“You want to help me.” Primus, was Starscream cursed now to just repeating Wheeljack’s glyphs? Had the mech hacked him somehow?

Wheeljack’s gaze softened further. “Yeah, Star. We’re together, aren’t we? ‘Course I want to help you.”

Starscream thought he felt something akin to guilt. “That doesn’t mean you have to deal with my problems on top of your own.”

“Maybe, but I want to.”

Starscream’s spark kept up with those odd feelings, this time stronger than before. His gaze was locked with Wheeljack’s, his optics a calm, light blue. Starscream didn’t even have the glyphs planned, but the words fell out of his vocalizer nonetheless.

“It’s the slagging councilor from Tarn. He—”

Starscream wasn’t quite sure, by the end of it, what all he had said. He had ranted about the Tarnian councilor and his inexperience, the Vosnian councilor and his willingness to disregard Vos’s cultural restoration, Windblade and her want for everything without realizing all the other councilors had the exact same desires and more, the Kaonite councilor and his vague dismissals of Starscream, so reminiscent of the patrons of the Vosnian court Starscream had desperately escaped so long ago. Memories resurfaced of that labyrinthine palace and his yearning to be free of it, and now here he was, willingly, in spite of all that.

Wheeljack listened closely, never interrupting. He removed his battle-mask, revealing the heavily scarred mouth beneath, and sipped at his cube while Starscream ranted and gesticulated animatedly. There was something beyond soft in his optics, something that kept Starscream’s vocalizer from locking up once again and bottling all this up. The warmth of his field encircled Starscream, open and strong and soft, enveloping Starscream like a blanket.

Starscream stopped at some point. Moonlight filled his quarters. Two empty cubes and an offline data-pad rested on the short table by their pedes. A weightlessness unlike anything Starscream had experienced in vorns settled over him, something evocative of flying in open blue skies after a long period of storms.

Starscream finally allowed himself to relax against the back of the couch, a hairsbreadth away from Wheeljack’s frame, close enough to feel the warmth radiating from his frame.

“Thank you,” he said, letting his forehelm drop onto Wheeljack’s shoulder.

A servo rose to brush lightly against the edge of his wings. “Any time.”


End file.
